Best Supporting Actress 2011: Octavia Spencer - The Help

The Help is a honey of the audience this Oscar season. The lots of people and the lots of money they spent in the cinemas are just incredible. I must say, that I was not so much impressed by it. It is a nice film, no doubts about that, but there is too much clishé in it. But it´s a very likable film, anyway.
And so is Octavia Spencer´s performance. Her character is very likable and it has some very comic scenes, but even some serious scenes. In the serious scenes she is perfect, but in the comic ones, she just fails to be just a little bit realistic. She is just extremely overacting. Some overacted moments are wonderful, because, if they weren´t overacted, they´d not be funny, but the other are terrible. I know, that for example Jessica Chastain is in The Help also overacting, but it is always funny and in the favor of the character.
Woody Allen once said, that the worst thing, you can do if you make a comedy, is try to be funny. But Octavia Spencer does exactly that. On the other side we see nominated Melissa McCarthy and she was incredibly funny in Bridesmaids, but she never really tries it. That´s the way, comic performance should have been played, not this way.
I think, Spencer has the biggest chances to win and I will not be very disappointed, if she wins, because some moments of her performance are really very good and enjoying, but this is not the way I imagine a really great Oscar-worthy performance...